A Foreign Policy article published recently has caused quite a stir: it argues that Indonesia has lost its bragging rights as a democracy. The writer, Endy Bayuni, says it is because this country has failed on two fronts—law enforcement and religious freedom. The former is illustrated through the Bima tragedy that happened a while ago, while the latter is a much more complicated issue, one that I would like to spotlight here.

Although not a particularly religious person myself, I can definitely say that the freedom to practice a religion or belief is one of the most fundamental human rights. After all, it has been stipulated inside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and our Constitution. For a lot of people, religion is what defines them and guides their lives. But what happened in Indonesia in recent years has been—to put it lightly—grotesque.

We can see many cases where religious minorities are being discriminated on the ground of their beliefs: the Ahmadiyah community in Cikeusik, the Christians of GKI Yasmin, the list goes on and on. And what is more shocking, our government doesn’t seem to care (even the mayor of Bogor—where GKI Yasmin is located—was not accommodating the Christian population in his region).

A friend of mine from university, Shirley Simarmata, tells me that Indonesia can be “crappy when it comes to religious freedom.”  Government’s apathy plus intolerance of some people have brought us all here.

So now what?

As cliché as it might sound, it is our task as the citizens to do what we can to help. There have been many supports for religious freedom coming from various parts of society. In the cyber world, some people took initiative to highlight the Ahmadiyah massacre in Cikeusik by creating a Web site called “Cikeusik 6211” as a “virtual monument” for the tragedy. There is also Siti Musdah Mulia, chairperson of the Indonesian Conference for Religion and Peace, who is a staunch activist of human rights and interfaith peace in Indonesia (check out her inspiring TEDxJakarta talk here).

But eventually, we might have to agree with Shirley: “I think the current situation can be improved through education, but it still takes time to achieve an ideal condition of interfaith tolerance among the society.” I do believe that there is still hope. To take a quite far-fetched example, in 1950s USA, black people were being discriminated through the racial segregation policies; now an African-American man is sitting behind the desk inside the Oval Office. It took decades, but there is one small progress at a time.

Yet it is very important to remind ourselves that not only is bottom-up approach from the society needed, government’s role indeed is very significant, too. If policies that ensure freedom to religion are being exercised (no more complicated measures for the construction of worship places, perhaps?), we are on the right track.

This reminds me of an anecdote I once heard: “Indonesia can truly reach the height of democracy only if a Chinese Christian woman is elected as the governor of Aceh.” Of course, it is only a joke, yet it goes to show that there is still a lot to be improved. Now if only our politicians are not too busy tweeting…